


Frank, Desert Child

by vamprav



Series: Mockingbird [2]
Category: Bandom, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 06:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11435493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vamprav/pseuds/vamprav
Summary: Or, BOOM! Motherfucker! How Frank Got His Name.





	Frank, Desert Child

**Author's Note:**

> The only exposure I have to the Killjoys is the music videos and fanfic.

Before Fun Ghoul joined the Killjoys, before he discovered the beauty of  _ BOOM _ , before he was even Fun Ghoul he was Frank. Just Frank because the Iero Heir had died at the edge of Battery City.

Mocking Bird is sitting in front of him on the bike and the night is cold and the stars are bright. Frank’s mouth is dry and his eyes sting and his ass is sore from bouncing over potholes. He had never been happier.

She drops him off at a group of tents clustered inside a group of cars, stays with him long enough to show him to the camp’s leader and then vanishes.

“Don’t take it personally,” Doctor Death Defying tells him, “That Motorbaby’s been Runnin’ a long time, longer than I’ve been. She was Runnin’ before the Apocalypse of Sound, during the Helium Wars. She never speaks and has pulled more kids out of Bat City than I can remember. All those kids are some of the best fucking Runners I’ve ever met, the ones that are still alive anyway. And the ones that aren’t…”

The doctor leans back to stare at the stars. He lets out a long low whistle that sounds like music.

“There went out with a bang,” Show Pony comments from the other side of the fire.

Frank feels like he should flinch at the mention of death but instead he feels a swell of pride. Those kids that Mockingbird pulled from the city, their his kin in a way he’s never experienced before. Frank Iero may have been an only child with a dead mother and an important father but Frank, Frank who hasn’t even been Named yet, who hasn’t killed yet, who hasn’t truly Ran yet…

His mother is a woman dressed in grey leather with hair as white as bone. His fathers are the wind and the sand and the road from Bat City. His siblings are many and one day he hopes he’ll meet them.

The pride in his chest swells and is tinged with excitement. Frank smiles wide, his first in a long, long time.

Doctor D’s crew tells him stories all through the night. Some are legends, like the Youngblood’s last stand. Some are true tales of famous Runners. Some of it was gossip which Frank mostly found boring. But Frank’s favorites were the stories about his siblings, other Mocking children that died in blazes of fire and glittering color, painting the desert red with Drac blood in their wake.

Frank falls asleep surrounded by voices and sand. The stories follow him into his dreams. They are the best dreams he has ever had.

He wakes up the next day in the back seat of a car to the sound of engines and music blaring. He has never felt more at home.

Dr. D’s crew drives him to an old warehouse which was apparently the current Trading Post of the Zones.

“You should find someone to take you on here,” Show Pony says, “if not you’ll at least be able to find steady work with one of the traders.”

“And, Sunshine,” Dr. D says, as they’re about to fly off, “don’t tell anyone you’re a Mocking Child, some people will try to take advantage.”

Frank nods and watches Dr. D’s crew drive off into the desert. Then, he turns to walk into the warehouse.

It’s a little overwhelming. There are at least five different songs of varying genre blaring from every direction, crashing together and reacting like volatile chemicals. There were people of all shapes and sizes were packed from one end of the warehouse to the other. And the colors…

Frank hadn’t even known that there were so many colors in existence. He stands in the doorway and stares at all the whirling, blurring chaos.

It is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

~*****~

Frank had chosen yellow and green as his colors and keeps them bright, as bright as he can manage without the ability to regularly wash. Everytime he puts his jacket on he grins, wide and manic because he’s not in Bat City anymore.

Oh, life still kind of sucks but it’s better, he’s not living in fear of losing himself anymore.

The food sucks but Frank had been expecting that. He can’t regularly bathe which is an adjustment in and of itself but he’s learnt to deal with that. There are other small annoying things but the only thing Frank really has a problem with is the fact that he doesn’t have a crew.

The first crew that had picked him up dumped him as soon as they figured out that he was only fourteen years old. They had said that Kobra Kid was bad enough but at least he’d been in the Zones for more than a week and his brother was terrifying.

The second crew had been fine… for the first week. They’d fed him and taught him how to shoot and he’d liked them. And then something had gone wrong on a mission and the leader had blamed Frank for it. The asshole had completely lost it and tried to beat the short teen into the ground.

Neither crew had Named him and that pissed him off.

After that disaster Frank had stopped asking around for crew recruiting and had thrown himself into the Pit. He’d lost his first bout and his second and his fiftieth but he never gave an inch. He’d get back up, dust himself off, and threw himself back into the fray.

One day he drags himself out of the Pit to get water and a woman comes up to him.

“You having fun, little ghoul?” She asks with a manic grin.

Frank has a black eye, he’s covered in bruises in various stages of healing, and he bit his tongue during his last fight. He looks at her with her manic grin and her purple hair, her purple everything really and realizes she’s serious, she really does want to know if he’s having fun.

He is almost surprised when he nods.

Her grin grows and she purrs, “You got a Name, little ghoul?”

Frank reluctantly shakes his head.

“Tell you what, little ghoul,” she tells him after a moment of consideration, “if you win your next fight I’ll let you into my crew.”

Frank is frozen in shock for a second but then his eyes widen and he turns to fling himself back into the Pit.

The thing is, Frank should be beaten into the ground. He wasn’t tall, he never had been and with the poor nutrition out in the Zones he probably wouldn’t get much taller. He wasn’t as muscular as the others in the Pit. he had never won a match.

But he was a scrapper, he got up when most would have stayed down, he’d learned to fight as dirty as possible, and he was a Mocking Child. Give a Mocking Child hope and they would take the world on with a stick and win.

Everything blurred, time slowed, and Frank’s attention focused, narrowed until the only thing left was his opponent. He didn’t remember the match, all he knew was that one minute he was standing at the edge of the Pit and in the next he had a man twice his size in a choke hold.

There isn’t silence because silence isn’t something that exists in the Pit or in the Trading Post in general, but the noise ratchets down half a notch. People are watching an Frank doesn’t care because the purple woman is smiling at him.

Tap. Tap.

Frank lets the man go as soon as he taps out and walks up to the purple woman. She nods, manic smile still in place, and leads him out of the Trading Post.

“My Name’s Desert Cat, little ghoul,” she tells him and leads him to a bright purple motorcycle.

He climbs on behind her and clings like his life depends on it. It does because Desert Cat drives like Dracs are constantly on their tail. Frank still nearly falls off at least twice.

“Did you have fun, Fun Ghoul?” Desert Cat asks when they stop at the mouth of a steep embankment.

“Yeah,” Frank, no, Fun Ghoul breathes.

~*****~

Star Eye purses his lips as he looks Fun Ghoul up and down with a critical eye.

“You are not a physical fighter,” he says and it isn’t an insult, just a fact stated in a bland tone, “you’re a good shot but your speed could use some work, and you’ve picked up Cat’s suicidal driving tendencies.”

There are a few beats of silence as the two boys stare at each other and then Star Eye smiles. Fun Ghoul is abruptly reminded that everyone in his new crew is fucking insane, Cat is just the most obvious about it.

There are five of them including Ghoul and all of them are Mocking Children. Desert Cat is the leader, Last Shot is a sniper, Hat Trick is a medic, and Star Eye was a demolition expert. They all wore purple, Ghoul had even taken to wearing a purple bandana along with his yellow shirt and green vest. Desert Cat is still the purplest though.

Ghoul loved them all like family.

“Let me introduce you to your new best friends,” Star Eye says and holds up a small lumpy object, “explosives.”

They spend the next two days blowing things up. It’s a rush like no other, Fun Ghoul has never felt so alive.


End file.
